Dissecting new lipids and their composition in herbal tea using untargeted LC/MS

Area of Science:

• Food Chemistry
• Lipidomics
• Phytochemistry

Background:

• Herbal teas are recognized for bioactive compounds with health benefits like antioxidant and anticarcinogenic properties.
• The lipidomic profiles of commonly consumed herbal teas are not well-characterized.
• Understanding lipid composition can reveal new bioactive components and health implications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To comprehensively profile and compare the lipidomic composition of four distinct herbal teas: dokudami, kumazasa, sugina, and yomogi.
• To identify unknown lipid species and characterize the unique lipid profiles of each herb.
• To discover novel lipids within these plant-based beverages.

Main Methods:

• Employed an untargeted lipidomics approach.
• Utilized high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with linear ion trap-Orbitrap mass spectrometry (HPLC-LT-Orbitrap MS) for lipid identification.
• Applied multivariate principal component analysis (PCA) for comparative analysis of lipid profiles.

Main Results:

• Identified 341 distinct molecular lipid species across five major lipid classes.
• Demonstrated unique lipidomic profiles for each of the four herbal teas via PCA.
• Discovered novel short-chain fatty acid esters of hydroxy fatty acids (SFAHFAs) in plants, with 4-hydroxy phenyl nonanoic acid as a core structure.
• Quantified abundant fatty acids: α-linolenic acid (FA 18:3) in kumazasa and arachidonic acid (FA 20:4) in sugina.

Conclusions:

• The study provides the first comprehensive lipidomic analysis of dokudami, kumazasa, sugina, and yomogi herbal teas.
• Revealed significant lipidomic diversity among the studied herbal teas.
• The discovery of novel SFAHFAs opens new avenues for research into plant-derived bioactive lipids and their potential health benefits.